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When Judy is looking up on the case she finds, along with Nick, that there's a laboratory in a vehicle which processes a blue chemical to be sold in the market. While the chemist is making the preparation, he receives some other characters at his door so he interrupts his phone call explaining: "Woolter and Jesse are back, so I'm leaving now."

All the set up seems a general reference to the Breaking Bad series (2008-2013). Is there any important reason to make this reference. Just a cultural tribute or something else?

Breaking bad easter egg

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    I guess it's both cultural and important, since the Nighthowlers are some kind of drugs and it was an opportunity to bring the puns and references to the movie
    – IutbaZion
    Oct 9, 2016 at 4:58
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    Not to forget that "Woolter" alone is a great name for a ram.
    – Mario
    Oct 9, 2016 at 6:52
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    @nilon They included a scene from the Godfather too. I think they wanted to give the adults their share from the movie. So both kids and their parents can have fun.
    – ibrahim mahrir
    Sep 16, 2017 at 17:08

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The directors addressed this scene and their motivation directly, indicating that it was both a cultural homage and just a really good joke:

The gag works. During copious test screenings, Moore and Howard say they can consistently count on hearing adults crack up at the reference, coursing through the audience like a ripple the kids never notice.

The duo continues, “We kept thinking, well, at some point we’ve got to pull this back, but as we kept building the scene and designing it, we kept saying, well, there’s nothing really offensive about this. It’s a ram growing flowers in an abandoned train car, making a chemical serum. It evokes a show from pop culture, but it’s not like it’s something that’s offensive to the audience. But it really puts you into that mindset.”

They have much more to say about this scene in the Entertainment Weekly article that the above quote comes from.

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  • I found that scene to be the funniest one in the movie, I think, largely because of the cultural reference but also it was just really good regardless
    – Wayne Werner
    Oct 10, 2016 at 13:03
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Kid's movies and TV often contain jokes/references or other Easter eggs that only adults will catch. This entertains the parents, while going over the kid's heads. For example in Scooby Doo (2002) Shaggy meets a girl and she says her name is Marry Jane to which he replies, "That's my favorite name". Kids wouldn't understand that joke, but parents would. Similar to this movie, it's a reference to a TV show that mostly only parents would watch so only they would understand that joke, it's a harmless way to keep the parents entertained while watching a movie that might not be their first choice.

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    my kid found out about that, and I had to explain several of these parent jokes ... :( Sometimes, I just lied.
    – GwenKillerby
    Sep 15, 2017 at 8:17

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